The Saga of Peggy: How Not to Get the Annual Did.

Rich Holt

Rich Holt

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TL;DR: An annual should not take 7 months right?

I have shared some of this saga on various threads so far but thought that it might deserve its own discussion. I debated on whether this should have been filed under "Lessons Learned," but I digress.

Last August I joined the realms of aircraft owners when I bought Peggy, a 1973 Grumman Traveler, from a friend of a friend of an acquaintance. It had not even made to the market yet, and I so wanted a Grumman. A pre-buy was had and terms were agreed upon, yada yada, I won an airplane!!

On our maiden flight together, during the pre-takeoff checklist, Peggy's flaps failed to retract and I had to taxi back in disgrace and let some stranger take a look at the problem. It was Labor Day weekend and not a soul was in sight, but I was able to contact a nice shop who agreed to take my wounded bird in first thing Tuesday. The problem turned out to be the flap switch and one was ordered, but it would be another week before it arrived. During that week I decided that While the bird was already torn apart, I should just knock out the annual that was due in two months.

With 2 A&Ps and an IA on staff, they should make quick work of the annual right? The list of squawks arrived in my email inbox two weeks later. The motor is in great shape as is the prop. Bonus. Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news. Corrosion was found on the belly, on the rudder pedal torque tube and on the wing attach bolts. Oh, and both tanks need to be resealed. Ok, so maybe it will take a few more weeks before my wounded bird can fly again.

Weeks pass with no communication. I call and leave VMs. No callbacks. By the time December rolls around, the A&P begins the tank reseal, having repaired all of the remaining squawks except for a "new" AD.

After the A&P finishes reinstalling the wings, he moves on to greener pastures and the shop is down to just the IA. Early in January, I corner the IA and he gives me the "plan" to accomplish the new AD which will consist of ~12 shop hours and about 35 rivets.

That leads us to today. The annual is complete and only the logbooks need be annotated and signed appropriately. Which is all well and good, except the A&P has a surgery scheduled tomorrow and I might be without my plane for another month whilst he recovers.

I have asked a few times and (now) know that this is not normal. I should probably find a new shop. Do I have any recourse? Is it even warranted? Or am I just logging this in the old LL binder for "next time?"
 
I'd be more ****ed at the guy who did the inspection. But, going to surgery and being out for a month without getting paperwork done is pretty low imo.
 
Rich Holt said:
Do I have any recourse?
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Rich Holt said:
Or am I just logging this in the old LL binder for "next time?"
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FWIW: Door #2 above. Recourse for what? You "won" an aircraft after a substandard pre-buy by whoever. On your 1st flight said won aircraft did not function properly. You then dropped off your aircraft at the whoever's shop to not only fix that problem but to also perform an annual. And people get ****ed when I tell them to select their APIA before they "win" an aircraft. :rolleyes:
 
Rich Holt said:
…A pre-buy was had and terms were agreed upon, yada yada, …
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Painful. In the spirit of the .mil debrief, what did you specify the pre-buy inspect and to what degree?

Why did you not force an annual by a shop of your choice instead of a pre-buy?
 
From another thread on the board right now I've learned that you should be thankful it ever got done and forgive any delays or poor communications because, well apparently it’s what we deserve or something. I still haven’t quite figured out *why* we’re supposed to be happy about crappy service, but “Covid” and “that’s how it is now” are somehow explanations.

Oh, and don’t forget that it’s ungrateful bastards like us that expect not to be treated like crap are what’s running these wonderful stewards of our aircraft out of business. Again, for some reason we are supposed to be sad that people running crappy businesses with crappy service go out of business.

PS> It’s all your fault. Nobody else should be expected to not screw you, only you are responsible and you should accept being screwed gracefully.
 
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/sarcasm

Sorry this happened to you. Yes, you got screwed by multiple people. Yes, you should find people that won’t screw you and not accept being screwed is normal. It’s not. Yes, you should have done that before, but you didn’t know what you didn’t know. No, you don’t really have any recourse. Hopefully you gained experience. Welcome to aircraft ownership. Befriend a good IA and buy him lots of whatever it is he likes to drink, eat, or smoke.
 
It's too late now, but you did have the option of getting the IA to sign off the annual with discrepancies, and have another a&p do the repairs. Might have been able to get a ferry permit to get it to a better shop if you couldn't find anyone to come to you. Probably would've been the best move when the communication problems became evident.
 
Well, you didn't know what you didn't know. But now you know. Hindsight is 2020. As far as recourse, maybe the prebuy depending on if a contract was written and what was agreed to be looked at but would probably be a tough sell.

Grumman's aren't Cherokees or 172's. I'd be willing to bet there's a few areas that are known and a good shop knows the gotcha areas or tricks that a normal shop wouldn't. So going forward id seek out a type club and see if there's a shop that gets recommended that's local to you.
 
Choosing good shops, and managing what they do, makes all the difference,

Savvy’s service would have been a really good choice for the OP. They would have helped the OP pick a good shop for the prebuy inspection and provided a checklist for it, and provided advice re. whether to buy. If the OP had bought the plane despite the findings of that prebuy from a good shop, Savvy would have then helped the owner choose a good shop for the annual inspection, and helped guide them through that experience.
 
Ugh, sorry to hear this. Have you seen the bill? I hate to say it, but it’s gonna be a doozy...

Not much you can do from here other than learn the lesson. Pick your shops carefully and on good recommendations. Find a good one and stick with them. Do an owner assisted annual to get started with them if you can - you want to see how they work and be there to look at anything they find if at all possible.

School of hard knocks - we’ve all been there, at least I know I have!
 
PaulS said:
I'd be more ****ed at the guy who did the inspection. But, going to surgery and being out for a month without getting paperwork done is pretty low imo.
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I agree^^^^^^

I will say no more...it has all been said already.
Question though, when does the annual need be to done next year?
 
TCABM said:
Painful. In the spirit of the .mil debrief, what did you specify the pre-buy inspect and to what degree?

Why did you not force an annual by a shop of your choice instead of a pre-buy?
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To be fair to the A&P that did the pre-buy, I was looking for a small list of walk-away items that are specific to this model because of the low asking price. I used the prebuy to take 30% off the asking price. The shop that is doing the annual came recommended to me by the airport manager. I knew that the plane was going to need some work done. I am not complaining about the amount of work that needed to be done. This shop did really great work. It has just taken 7 months (and counting) to do 6 weeks worth of work, including 12 hours in the last 3 months. Waiting for rivets for 5 weeks? Having those rivets sitting in a bag on the wing of the airplane for another 3 weeks before you start the 12 hours of maintenance?
 
Racerx said:
Well, you didn't know what you didn't know. But now you know. Hindsight is 2020. As far as recourse, maybe the prebuy depending on if a contract was written and what was agreed to be looked at but would probably be a tough sell.

Grumman's aren't Cherokees or 172's. I'd be willing to bet there's a few areas that are known and a good shop knows the gotcha areas or tricks that a normal shop wouldn't. So going forward id seek out a type club and see if there's a shop that gets recommended that's local to you.
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This IA does the work for 2 area Tigers, I'm told. :dunno:
 
The annual is due 12 months from the last one. If he signs you off in April you're not due until April 2023. After everything you've been through make sure he doesn't screw that up too.
 
Salty said:
Oh, and don’t forget that it’s ungrateful bastards like us that expect not to be treated like crap are what’s running these wonderful stewards of our aircraft out of business. Again, for some reason we are supposed to be sad that people running crappy businesses with crappy service go out of business.
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What about when there's no one left to service our planes? There's not exactly a line of people waiting to be A&P's for the GA piston fleet. It's a niche market of a niche market, so I'd rather support the people that still keep this dying fleet going rather than hold them to an idealistic standard.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
What about when there's no one left to service our planes? There's not exactly a line of people waiting to be A&P's for the GA piston fleet. It's a niche market of a niche market, so I'd rather support the people that still keep this dying fleet going rather than hold them to an idealistic standard.
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This is a good point that did not go unnoticed. Part of the problem with this annual was that the shop went from 3 A&Ps to 1 over that time period. Granted one of them (the guy would did 90% of the annual) went to the other end of the hangar (greener pastures).
 
Sounds like your prebuy mechanic did not do a thorough job, but that can come down to a misunderstanding between him and you on scope and detail. I will blame neither of you for that without knowing what was agreed to.

When the flaps failed, you were caught in need of a handy shop and you found one willing to help at the end of the holiday weekend. Not a bad call to go with such a shop on short notice for what was likely a relatively simple troubleshooting case and repair. No blame there.

Choosing to leave it there for the annual due to waiting on the part was in my opinion where you made a mistake. I would have let them fix the flaps and then took the plane home. Then you’d have the two months remaining on your annual to properly vet a shop or IA for the annual.

There was no need to rush into an annual just because the plane was “tore apart”. I do not think it would have been torn apart far enough to justify doing an early annual when repairing the flap issue. But I was not there.

The shop is one that I would not likely recommend based on what you wrote about it. Definitely sounds like they have major issues. If you had taken the extra two months and researched shops, you might have learned about this shop the easy rather than hard way. LL.
 
NoHeat said:
Choosing good shops, and managing what they do, makes all the difference,

Savvy’s service would have been a really good choice for the OP. They would have helped the OP pick a good shop for the prebuy inspection and provided a checklist for it, and provided advice re. whether to buy. If the OP had bought the plane despite the findings of that prebuy from a good shop, Savvy would have then helped the owner choose a good shop for the annual inspection, and helped guide them through that experience.
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I was very disappointed in the shop Savvy recommended for my pre-buy and annual. Also Savvy's advisor wasn't familiar with Musketeers and I ended up doing much of the research myself. In my case Savvy wasn't that much help.
 
Rich Holt said:
To be fair to the A&P that did the pre-buy, I was looking for a small list of walk-away items that are specific to this model because of the low asking price. I used the prebuy to take 30% off the asking price.…
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If you discounted the value of the plane by 30% and then had to do time consuming maintenance work, I would say you unknowingly priced in the time to do the work.

What the opportunity cost was knowing what shop not to go back to.
 
I can somewhat relate to this. The Archer was due by the end of July for annual, but the shop couldn’t get it in til the first of August. I had a laundry list of squawks, so naturally I knew it wasn’t going to be a few weeks in and out.

To make a long story short and save the grueling details of the never ending saga, the ongoing parts shortage, and rate at which the mechanic works and juggles other projects, I just got it back this past Friday. It was an annual filled with correcting deferred maintenance that had been put on the sidelines over the years. Just about everything firewall forward was replaced, except the engine itself, the electric fuel pump and vacuum pump.

An enormous invoice later and it’s back airworthy in the hangar. I will say, pick your shop and mechanic(s) wisely. As always, there’s those who honestly complete work and there’s those who pencil their name into the logbook. The previous shop that the owner used was certainly the latter and should be put out of business, the IA there needs his certificate pulled.
 
FWIW- the crazy airplane market is turning hangar/tie-down queens into sold aircraft for new owners. The net effect is two fold: 1) they have lots of issues (to be fair: all planes have issues), and 2) maintenance shops are overwhelmed with work. It's not a bad time to be an A&P, plenty of work to go around, so it doesn't surprise me that they're jumping shops. Throw in supply chain issues and lots of unobtainium parts and things are starting to get dicy. Full disclosure: I'm still waiting to pick up my 182 from annual that I dropped off in November. It wasn't the annual but all of the "while we're at it" add-ons that are taking forever.
 
I see you are in South Carolina. You might check out True Flight in Valdosta GA for future annuals, since they are a Grumman specialist.
 
PaulS said:
Name names.
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In my situation it was Ronald Poor out of RKW. A true pencil whipper. Avoid him.

Highly recommend Tim Hart at FGU, very thorough and competent.
 
AlleyCat67 said:
I see you are in South Carolina. You might check out True Flight in Valdosta GA for future annuals, since they are a Grumman specialist.
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I have. The plane was already deemed airworthy by the time that I discovered them. There was a discussion about trucking the wings to them to get them resealed but the logistics made that a non-starter. Next year, perhaps.
 
I thought about getting the A&P cert myself because I love maintenance. It's what I do now professionally, well, sort of. Then I installed a new interior in the Grumman and decided that my body type is not the best option for GA A&P work.
 
upload_2022-4-5_12-50-47.png

There are some benefits to an extended annual...
 
Most airplanes are old. Some are really old. Corrosion happens. Defects get deferred, if they're even found in the first place. Owners go to cheap shops so they can continue to fly. When the costs finally pile up they sell the airplane to someone who doesn't pay for, or understand the need for, the thorough prebuy that it really should get, and so he gets stung like the OP. The lack of parts (especially for orphaned airplanes) doesn't help.

I felt sorry for the guys that bought an airplane that was $20K cheaper, even though we tried to tell them that the more expensive airplane was the far better deal, having been cared for properly. The costs to repair that "cheaper" airplane were often horrifying.

I'm happy to be retired and away from that agony.
 
Strong advocate of owner assisted annuals at least once. If you do it with your mechanic, you’ll realize how little there is to an annual (for your average spam can). It’s a day and a half of work at best, even with a few fixes, assuming you’re not waiting on parts. Very hard to justify weeks or months long annuals.

In my opinion, you have to be very judicious with what you ask your shop - the “while we’re in there logic” is death sentence - be very careful about what you open up, not because you don’t want to find things, but because there’s always more that can be opened up and worked on, and this logic can spiral things out of control. I know a guy who ended up completely restoring a plane - exterior, interior, engine and prop, when he started out to do some touch up paint.

@RyanB You accuse this poor mechanic of being a pencil-whipper, but on what basis? Given your ire, something really must have gone wrong, but so many times it’s just a difference of opinion, and the shops - especially the big ones where there’s a billing department and someone else to deal with the upset customer - are incentivized to find problems. My rule of thumb is that if you have your annual done at a big shop with the epoxy floor, they’re going to make up a lot of work and **** all over the last guy who did the annual, whether or not it’s justified. And they can play the “you wouldn’t want to kill grandma, would you” safety game to justify it. Another huge reason to do owner-assisted - so you can be there to see the condition of whatever is under discussion.
 
AA5Bman said:
@RyanB You accuse this poor mechanic of being a pencil-whipper, but on what basis? Given your ire, something really must have gone wrong, but so many times it’s just a difference of opinion, and the shops - especially the big ones where there’s a billing department and someone else to deal with the upset customer - are incentivized to find problems. My rule of thumb is that if you have your annual done at a big shop with the epoxy floor, they’re going to make up a lot of work and **** all over the last guy who did the annual, whether or not it’s justified. And they can play the “you wouldn’t want to kill grandma, would you” safety game to justify it. Another huge reason to do owner-assisted - so you can be there to see the condition of whatever is under discussion.
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It’s very easy for you to make assumptions without knowing any of the details. I can assuredly say that my justifications for calling a certain mechanic a pencil-whipper are more than valid and I don’t feel like describing all of the details here to explain why.
 
@RyanB Suit yourself, I wasn’t attacking you or defending this mechanic specifically.
 
Half Fast said:
I was very disappointed in the shop Savvy recommended for my pre-buy and annual. Also Savvy's advisor wasn't familiar with Musketeers and I ended up doing much of the research myself. In my case Savvy wasn't that much help.
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Not the only time I've heard that
 
Half Fast said:
I was very disappointed in the shop Savvy recommended for my pre-buy and annual. Also Savvy's advisor wasn't familiar with Musketeers and I ended up doing much of the research myself. In my case Savvy wasn't that much help.
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So what you’re saying is, the mechanics there weren’t too savvy when it comes to knowing their cheese… :)
 
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